THE SCENE: I can’t help but chuckle at the idea of a Roman Emperor in the public baths, dispensing little prizes and punishments for the common folk as his whims suit him.
THE TEXT: Often Emperor Hadrian bathed in the public baths, even when everyone was present, as a result of which the following bathing joke became well known: on one occasion he had seen a certain veteran, known to him in military service, rubbing his back and the rest of his body on the wall; he asked why he had the marble scrape him, and when he learned that this was done for the reason that he did not have a slave, he presented him with both slaves and with the cost of their maintenance. But on another day when several old men were rubbing themselves on the wall to arouse the emperor’s generosity, he ordered them to be called out and to rub each other down in turn.
– The Augustan History, Aelius Spartianus, 4th Century AD
